[Ed. note: Fair warning: this entry is a long one, and it involves a fair amount of rambling. I’ll eventually get to Spidey 2, but it’s going to take a while, so please bear with me. Or don’t. After all, it’s your surfing time. Who am I to tell you how to spend your time?]

There are four things you should know about me before I voice my opinions on the summer’s biggest film so far, Spider-Man 2:

1. I like comic books about superheroes.
2. I like movies based on comic books about superheroes.
3. I’ve seen most of the major films based on comics about superheroes.
4. And for my money, the best comic-book superhero movie ever made is the 1978 version of Superman.

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I realized as I was writing the previous entry that I haven’t posted any film reviews in a while, even though they are supposed to be one of the mainstays of Simple Tricks and Nonsense. There are several explanations, not least of which is my tendency to procrastinate, in addition to my equally pernicious capacity for distraction. (That’s a fancy way of saying that I always intend to write a review when I see a movie, but I’m too tired the day I actually see it, so I figure I’ll write about it the next day. But then when tomorrow comes some new topic smacks me in the forehead and I go for it like a cat following a laser pointer, and the next thing I know it’s been a month since I saw that one flick I was going to write about and, oh hell, I really need to catch up, and… Well, that’s probably more than you really wanted to know about my thought processes. Let’s just stick with, “I put things off and I’m easily distracted.”)

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I’m going to be honest here: the only reason I was remotely interested in seeing this week’s flick — which was advertised essentially as a remake of a film I consider to be a minor classic, namely Penny Marshall’s directorial debut, Big — is because the film’s star, Jennifer Garner, is so damn adorable. Don’t laugh; a lot of people base their viewing choices on the attractiveness of the cast. At least I’m honest about occasionally suffering through a less-than-impressive movie because I think the female lead is cute. Even some of the professional critics are prone to this behavior. For example, hop on over to Roger Ebert’s site and run a search for Neve Campbell. You’ll soon see that ol’ Rog has a crush on the Scream cutie and he’s not shy about admitting it.

Anyhow, getting back to my point, I went to see 13 Going on 30 because Jennifer Garner is cute, and because my usual viewing companion wanted to see it and I figured that I owed her after exposing her to the 70s cheesefest that is Battlestar Galactica the other night (yeah, I know it was an awful show, but I love the silly thing; at least I’m not into WWF. And if you’re curious for some depraved reason of your own, the episode Anne and I watched together was “Lost Planet of the Gods”). To my great surprise, the movie was neither a rip-off of Big — at least not much of one — nor was it a bad film. I quite liked it actually. But it is definitely a case of something that’s becoming all-too-common these days: the disconnect between how a movie is marketed and what it actually is.

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I’m probably about to lose whatever street cred I may have had as an intellectual observer of movies, but I simply can’t carry on the charade any longer: I don’t get Charlie Kaufman.

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How often does this happen: you go to a movie and find that the characters are uninteresting, two-dimensional puppets that you don’t remotely care about, and the only justification you can find for the seven bucks you dropped at the box office — not to mention the additional fifteen you spent on snacks — is that the film is filled with amazing visual effects and ingenious new ways to damage property. All the time, right?

So how often does the exact opposite occur? I’m talking about seeing a movie in which you really like the characters and the basic premise, but the movie itself feels disappointingly short on spectacle. That’s a much rarer animal, even a bit of a paradox, and yet, such movies do exist. Case-in-point: Hellboy, a new film based on the comic book created in 1994 by Mike Mignola.

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Best-selling writer Mort Rainey has problems. Six months ago, he found his wife in bed with another man. Since then, he’s been shuffling around their small-town vacation cabin in a ratty bathrobe, living on peanut butter and Doritos, sleeping away half the day, and trying desperately to get over the writer’s block that has him stuck on the first paragraph of his new story (sounds like the way I pass my time!). As if all that isn’t enough, now he’s got the scariest Southerner seen on film since Deliverance standing on his porch, insisting that Rainey stole his story and must make it right. So begins the latest film based on the writings of Stephen King…

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Lately I’ve been putting my library card to use and tracking down some older films for which I either don’t want to risk a blind purchase or can’t find anywhere else. Most of these are well-known titles that I’ve just never gotten around to seeing before – for instance, I recently watched Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity, a nifty noir thriller with Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and more cigarettes than you’ve ever seen outside of a hijacked Winston truck. That was definitely a good choice. Unfortunately, however, I sometimes end up with something a bit more… regrettable.

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The sharp-eyed reader of Simple Tricks will no doubt notice that today’s entry isn’t what I promised was coming. What can I say? I’m easily distracted…

Have no fear. That discussion of my all-time favorite films is still on the way, hopefully by the end of the week. For today, however, I’d like to offer up my thoughts on The Cooler, an independent film currently running at Salt Lake’s Broadway Theater.

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